NB cup kit

[alfazer]

I would like to buy a queen rearing kit and have no previous experience of any of them. I am capable of making up wooden queen rearing frames myself, so I'm fine with that aspect.

Starting with the Th0rn3 catalogue, I see the Jenter and Nicot systems, but what about the NB cup kit £25 at well under half the price of the others. Guessing It's cheaper because it lacks the big brandname, but is it still a decent kit?

Has anyone got personal experience of using the NB kit?
Also, does anyone know if it's the same as the "Chinese" ones that people speak of?

 

[nantmoel]

I just bought the Nicot cell cups, cup holders and the cell bar holders. I intend to try grafting for the first time, not a big fan of caging the queen for 24 hours. Looking at all the video's on Youtube grafting do not look that daunting. Make sure you prepare the 'cell starter' colony correctly, and graft larvae of the correct age. I have heard the Chinese cell cups are the wrong size.

 

[B+.]

Has anyone got personal experience of using the NB kit?
Also, does anyone know if it's the same as the "Chinese" ones that people

I've no experience of the NB kit but did try the Nicot system. IMHO: it was a waste of money. To be honest, grafting works far easier. If you only need a few cells, it would be simpler to graft too.

Beekeeping catalogues are full of things you don't really need

 

[alfazer]

I've only ever made increase by splitting hives/artificial swarm. Grafting was down my list because I'm not sure how good I'd be at handling the larvae.
So I was going to try the Miller method or one of these cup kits.
I'm down to one colony (because nothing seemed to mate last year) but I have lovely bees at the minute and want to make the best of this queen. She is 2014 so I don't want miss the opportunity.

 

[nantmoel]

I've only ever made increase by splitting hives/artificial swarm. Grafting was down my list because I'm not sure how good I'd be at handling the larvae.
So I was going to try the Miller method or one of these cup kits.
I'm down to one colony (because nothing seemed to mate last year) but I have lovely bees at the minute and want to make the best of this queen. She is 2014 so I don't want miss the opportunity.

Due to the ways queens mate and the genetics, it certainly doesn't mean that a queen that has gentle workers will produce a sister who's off spring are the same, in fact sometime they can be quite the opposite.

 

[masterBK]

With only one colony any sort of lego method (Jenter, cup kit or NB) is a bit over the top. Suggest carry out Demaree and then insert split board with rear entrance 3 days later between top BC and anysupers . This will result in the production of a few decent cells in the top BC. When cells about 2 or 3 days off emerging take out two 3 comb nuclei out of the demaree top each with a queen cell leaving the remaining 4 combs + a queen cell as a nucleus in the Demaree top suitably dummied down. With a bit of luck you end up with three new mated queens each heading their own colony but be happy with two as mating success is never certain. When new queen in top box laying OK remove old queen from bottom BC and unite top to bottom BC'sThe old queen can be introduced to any of the nuclei that didn't end up with a mated queen and overwintered as 5 comb nucleus for breeding from the following year.

 

[tonyofarr]

I have used grafting in the past and am really bad at it, it did prompt me to go to the opticians and find out that I needed glasses for reading! However, even with reading glasses I did not have a good success rate. I started using the cupkit system 3 years ago and have not looked back, but you do have to be prepared to open the cell building hive repeatedly to check on cell acceptance etc and not every colony will cooperate with it. It has enabled me to run a good queen rearing programme for the last three years. The beek that showed me how to graft was amazing at it but although I have tried repeatedly I am lucky to raise 2 queen cells from a frame of 16 grafts.

 

[alfazer]

I'm thinking @masterBK's comment is probably my best way to go at this stage. I have only one colony building up on single national and it's probably not going to be have enough bees in there to make larger numbers of queens with the same success.
Thanks all for your input.